Reasons
by Orangeblossom
Summary: 1st season; When Kira has to spend a night recuperating in the infirmary, she and Bashir come to a better understanding of what drives them both.


Reasons

Commander Sisko looked up from where he lay on the floor, dazed, not able to believe he'd just dodged a Cardassian-planted bomb on the ore processing levels he'd only begun to inspect. He started to move, surprised at how little injury he'd sustained, and then noticed his new first officer, Major Kira, and remembered it was her quick reflexes that had propelled the both of them down the corridor and away from the worst of the blast.

"Major, were you hit?" Commander Sisko asked, kneeling beside Kira.

She brushed at the debris on her clothing. "Apparently." She shook her head at his offered hand. "I'm fine." She eased herself up against the corridor wall, got her feet under her and arose, standing unsteadily.

"I'd let the doctor be the judge of that."

Although her large dark eyes registered pain, she gave him a look. "The doctor? Mister 'Look At Me, I'm On The Edge Of Civilization'?" At Sisko's half-amused, half-puzzled look, she went on, "Bashir, right? Dark hair, blue uniform, starry eyed, _young_?"

Sisko nodded, having to admit, "That would be Doctor Bashir."

"No thanks. I don't trust him."

"You're going to have to, Major."

"I'm _fine_," she insisted.

Sisko stood aside. "Then walk."

She moved away from the wall's support but gritted her teeth and walked gingerly, a far cry from the athletic, graceful stride that had led them both into the corridor.

"Sure, you're fine," he said, deadpan.

"I've had worse happen to me," she said. "I've thrown heavy explosives with a sprained wrist, marched all night with—"

"Major, the war's over," Sisko said, as gently as he could. "We're here to help. Go see the doctor."

She turned, fiery resentment hiding her pain. "Isn't it wonderful the Federation's here now, since the Bajorans don't know how to take care of themselves. They'll make everything so nice again."

Sisko straightened, stung by her anger. "I didn't mean that," he said, his voice low. Kira's pale cheeks flushed as she acknowledged her unfairness to him, but she didn't back down. He went on in the same tone, "I'll have some people come down and do a sweep of these levels. Please, go to the infirmary, Major."

She arched an eyebrow. "You're not going to order me?"

"I don't have to, do I?"

They held each other's gaze for a long moment, trying to measure each other. Finally, Kira turned and led the way back to the turbolift. "No, sir," she answered.

* * *

Kira limped slowly to the infirmary and paused in the doorway. Bashir was crouched on the floor beside a Starfleet ensign who looked decidedly exasperated as the doctor pointed at the panel she was working on and exclaimed,

"I get it now! _That's_ why you use a polarity field when a hydrospanner—may I?" He reached for her 'spanner, which she relinquished with a roll of her eyes as she leaned away from him, ostensibly to give him room but obviously to get away from him. Then she caught sight of the First Officer in the doorway and froze.

As if Kira would report her for insubordination—! The major couldn't help a grin at the poor ensign and was glad she could do something to help her get her job done. "Doctor Bashir!" she said in her sharpest voice.

He looked up and smiled in recognition, greeting warmly, "Major Kira!" He handed the 'spanner back to the ensign, who dove back underneath the panel with what sounded suspiciously like a loud sigh of relief. Bashir got up and crossed the room. "We're still trying to get the Cardassian diagnostic equipment to talk to our Federation scanners and what-not—"

"So you're not up and running yet?" the major asked.

"Not fully, but—Major, you're here as a patient, aren't you?" he asked abruptly, noticing how pale she was, how she was carrying herself.

"I'm here because Commander Sisko wanted me to come see you."

"And not because _you_ wanted to," he said, not missing her phrasing.

"I don't need your help," she said bluntly.

"Will you at least let me take a look, since you're here?" he asked, his voice suddenly gentle as if to reassure her and Kira was surprised that he could respond so mildly to what she'd said. He gestured to a half-emptied anti-grav pallet hovering in the middle of the room and rummaged in a box for a tricorder. "What happened?" he asked as Kira walked stiffly to the pallet and sat down.

"There was an explosion on the ore processing levels—the Cardassians seem to have left a few 'presents' for the new occupants of the station. The commander and I were caught in the blast but he's fine."

"Because you took the brunt of it," Bashir said thoughtfully, looking at the tricorder readings.

She said, impatient, "It feels like something's happened to my ribs, right?" He nodded. "So just bind me tight and let me get on my way; I've got a lot—"

He stared at her and started to smile as if he'd just figured her out. "You'd sooner walk on a broken bone than admit that weakness, wouldn't you?"

"I walked on a broken bone when it was a _necessity_," she told him with some heat. "You didn't have the luxury of heroically hiding your weaknesses in the Resistance, you just did what you had to do."

"Well, you're not in the Resistance anymore, so there's no 'necessity' in putting up with the pain," Bashir replied cheerfully, seemingly oblivious to the edge in Kira's voice. He pulled another instrument out of a box.

"What's that?" she asked.

"A 'quick-fix-it.'" Kira felt patronized and showed it, but Bashir good-naturedly ignored her stare, running the instrument over her. "It'll heal your ribs and these bruises and burns, you'll be as good as new."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"How did Bajor ever do without you," she said flatly and waited for him to meet her mocking stare, but his attention was on his instruments and her changing tricorder readings. His ability to intensely focus, be attentive to nothing but the needs of his patient, reminded her that he was indeed, despite his age, a trained doctor.

Finally he looked up, satisfied with the readings. "Take a deep breath." She did so. "Feel any discomfort at all?"

She shook her head, then noted, "You act like there's something wrong with pain." She stood. "For one thing, it reminds you that you're still alive."

He responded, "There are other ways of reminding yourself that you're alive, Major."

"Like seeing a friend dropped by enemy fire and trying to take his pulse and then realizing he's already a corpse."

"Well..." he said, clearly puzzled. Then he started, as if coming to a sudden realization, and his sympathy was sincere as he said, "I realize that you've been through quite a lot—"

"Don't go digging in the dark, _Doctor_. You don't know what I've lived through," she said, her voice so coldly quiet, her eyes so sharp with fierce intensity that he was taken aback. "You don't know me at all."

* * *

As the DS9 crew cleared the station of Cardassian explosives, Kira found herself in the forefront of another explosion. Bashir healed her wounds and sent her on her way. When he saw her, supported by Security Chief Odo, come into the infirmary a third time, he shook his head. At least he didn't need to give her a lecture; the shapeshifter was already taking care of that.

"...Bajoran foolishness," he said, his voice gruff as he helped her onto a diagnostic table.

"Odo, it sets a bad example—" She tried not to wince as he helped her lie flat. "—and it's bad for morale to make your own people do something you're not willing to do yourself."

"What a morale booster, to get yourself killed," Odo observed dryly.

"You know what I mean!"

"Need I ask what happened?" Bashir inquired, joining them.

"We're just lucky I was there and able to protect her and her team," the security chief said. "She very nearly got herself killed this time." He turned back to Kira. "Now that you're in good hands, I trust your life is not in imminent danger...at least, until you leave here?"

"Don't be that way, Odo," she said irritably. "You know as well as I do that with that kind of fuse it couldn't be disarmed, it had to be detonated. I'm just doing my job."

"Sometimes I wonder at the risks you take," he said, and Kira recognized concern in the shapeshifter's immobile features.

She managed a small smile for him. "I'm okay, Odo. Thanks."

He nodded once and left the infirmary.

The doctor stared at her readings longer than he usually did and Kira baited, "What's the matter, can't you 'quick-fix' me with your incredible Federation medical equipment?"

"No, I can't," he said in all seriousness. "If the protoplaser is used too often on someone, that person's cells forget how to mend themselves. You've just reached your limit." He made a decision, motioned a nurse over. "I'm going to immobilize you and keep you for observation overnight." To his surprise, Kira made no protest.

The major stared at the ceiling impassively as Bashir treated her burns and carefully bound her ankle, knee, wrist and forearm. Then the nurse put her to bed in the recuperation ward and placed a brainwave neutralizer on her forehead to help her with the pain.

When the nurse finally left, Kira took the neutralizer off and let it fall to the floor. Then she closed her eyes, and her fists clenched and her jaw tightened as she let herself feel every throb and stab of pain through her body.

* * *

Bashir came in before he went off duty to check her visually. "You're uncomfortable," he said, noticing her clammy complexion, the tightness around her jaw, and then he caught sight of the neutralizer on the floor. "You're experiencing pain," he stated. "Don't you want anything for it?"

She shook her head. "Pain and I are old friends. I've kind of missed it, what with this comfortable Federation lifestyle and all."

"Well, I suppose 'comfortable' is relative," he conceded. "You're sure you're okay?"

"Yes."

He went out again, and came back with a hypo, explaining, "You're going to need a good night's sleep in order to heal, so let me give you something to help you relax. Okay?"

She thought about it, and then nodded. He pressed the hypo to her neck. Then he made himself comfortable on the chair beside her, wanting to make sure the dose took effect before he left.

"So what if something happens to me overnight?" she asked.

"No problem," he asserted. "I had them install a repeater of the main console in my quarters; I'll know instantly if there's a change in your condition. My quarters are also right next to a turbolift with medical emergency override, so I'm never more than a minute or so away. You're perfectly safe."

"I suppose so."

Bashir, never inclined to silence, said frankly as he watched her lifesigns indicate that she was, indeed, relaxing, "You know, I'm quite at a loss to understand how someone as accident-prone as you survived the Cardassian occupation, much less fought in the Resistance."

She didn't answer immediately, and as the silence stretched between them Bashir finally thought about exactly what he'd said and flushed, embarrassed. "Major, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

But even as he tried to apologize, Kira finally answered, slowly and with no rancor whatsoever, "I wasn't accident-prone back then."

He raised his eyebrows, clearly interested, inviting her confidence, her disclosure. "What's changed?"

She looked at him, her dark eyes liquid in the dim light of the recuperation ward. "I've never been afraid of death. And I'm still alive. But thousands and thousands of innocent people aren't."

He leaned forward, his curiosity turning into professional objectivity even as his expression still encouraged her to trust him, to tell him more. "You sound like you think that's your fault."

"I pledged my life for Bajor," she replied, her voice soft and matter-of-fact. "I was going to die trying to set Bajor free. I gave everything I had every time I took on a mission, and I've always survived. And yet the people I was trying to save, the ones who couldn't fight, were dying all around me."

She frowned at him, not sure why it was so important that she make him understand. "I've got rank, and power, and a clean bed in an oversized room, and more than enough food, and I'm walking around a Cardassian station like I own it, and I'm literally removed from my world's everyday concerns. I'm alive in conditions I can't even understand, much less deserve. I have no right to be here."

"Of course you do!" His eyes met hers, regarded her intently, and Kira suddenly saw in their dark depths an echo of her own pain. "You've earned the right to be here. Yes, thousands have died, but how many thousands more might have died if you hadn't taken the actions you did, in the way that you did, with your whole heart and soul?" At the mention of her soul, he recalled something of Bajor's spiritual beliefs and went on, "You're still alive because you're a witness to all those lives. And you're here because you can honor the ones who have died, you can give dignity to their _borhyas_ by never forgetting them, or letting anyone else forget."

Her eyes were starting to close, and Bashir wasn't sure that she would remember their conversation in the morning. He watched as her breathing evened out and her hands finally unclenched.

Only then did he say, his voice hushed as if he didn't want anyone but her to hear,

"No, I don't suppose I know what you've lived through, Major. We've all got our reasons for doing what we do, for feeling the way we do. But I do know that, when you expect to die...when you find yourself in a situation where you wish for death, and you don't die, then every day after that is a kind of gift. It's like you're born again, like you have a second chance.

"Not everyone gets one," he went on quietly. "But when you do get one, don't make the mistakes you did before. Don't tie yourself to the past. Look forward. Do everything and be everything of your highest aspirations. Because you realize, when you get a second chance, that life really is short—too short not to care."

* * *

The next day, Bashir walked into the recuperation ward to see Major Kira already at work, propped up on her good arm and video-linked to Odo's office.

"...the one near the drop chute has a cascade detonator; so does the one at the juncture to corridor 72C," she was telling the security chief as the doctor came over, fascinated.

"How in the world...?" he asked, sitting beside Kira on the bed and staring with her at the shapeshifter's now-bemused face. "This was originally a medical monitor—how'd you get an intercom hookup?" As Kira's silence and Odo's pointed stare finally registered on Bashir, he turned and realized that Kira was giving him the same stare.

"Do you mind?" she asked finally.

"Sorry, Major." He hopped off the bed lightly. "You really will have to explain to me sometime how you got that hookup." He gestured magnanimously. "Please—carry on."

Bashir set up the equipment for Kira's physical therapy as she conducted station business from her bed, checking on construction, traffic, cargo, personnel and security. When he looked over at her again, Odo was saying, "...two possible sites right off hand, Major, both with good access and visibility. One is on the Promenade level, near what will be the Temple, which is a fitting place for a permanent memorial. The other is on the upper level, facing the wormhole."

"Which do you suggest?"

"The Promenade site is more defensible, since it's on an inside corridor. The upper level site, however, might appeal to more...sentimental sensibilities."

"You're just waiting to hear me admit I'm a romantic, aren't you?" she teased the shapeshifter. "Okay; the idea of a memorial facing the Celestial Temple is _very_ appealing to me. When I hook up to the staff meeting—" Suddenly she glanced over at Bashir, who waited with a tolerant smile on his face. "—if the _good_ doctor lets me hook up to the staff meeting, I'll bring it up with Commander Sisko. I'd like to commission a few artisans for this as soon as possible. Kira out."

"I take it you rested well last night," Bashir said, letting Kira get out of bed herself and only lending his hand as she got onto the therapy table.

She nodded. Then she said abruptly, as if challenging him, "I had the strangest dream last night."

"Oh?" He helped her sit forward and showed her how to flex her knee properly. Then he looked at her, his expression perfectly open. "Care to talk about it?"

With a begrudging respect for the young doctor's discretion, she appreciated the deftness of his wording. Instead of forcing the issue, either pretending that their conversation had never happened or telling her unequivocally that she hadn't dreamed it, he'd made it her choice: she could talk about it further, or let it drop.

She straightened her knee slowly, and then bent it again. "No. I'm okay, Doctor," she answered.

He folded his arms across his chest, watching her progress. "You're doing just fine, Major." He smiled. "Just fine."

FIN


End file.
